Ruby Sparks (2012) starring Zoe Kazan

What do you get when you combine RomCom with Magic Realism and mix in some human failings?  You get a film like Ruby Sparks.

Calvin was a child genius of the literary world, having written and published a best-selling book by the time he was nineteen.  Now in his twenties, things are not going so well for Calvin:  he has writer's block, and he is love-lorn.  His psychiatrist innocuously asks Calvin to write one page about the kind of person he would like to meet.  Calvin does as he is asked, and to his astonishment his dream girl becomes a 3-D living young woman who calls herself Ruby Sparks.  Can an ideal fantasy become the ideal reality?

Haven't we seen this kind of thing before in the myth of Pygmalion and in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo?  Well, yes. Does Ruby Sparks give a fresh spin on this sub-genre?  Yes and no.  What we do see is how Calvin, having had his dream come true, botches this chance for happiness. That is nothing new; however, we are shown a vision of what an insecure, self-centred person may be capable of should they gain a god-like control over another individual, especially when that individual is a young woman who is showing signs of having a mind of her own.  Interest lies in how this 'problem' will play itself out.  Will there be a resolution beyond the usual trope of boy meets girl/loses girl/gets girl again?

Zoe Kazan, who wrote the screenplay, does a sterling job as the likeable and wracked Ruby Sparks.  Paul Dano is quite unlikeable as the unlikeable Calvin, while Chris Messina ably plays Calvin's brother Harry (perhaps the linchpin character of the movie).   Steve Coogan and Elliott Gould make understated cameos, while Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas play two hippies (who may as well be straight from central casting).  A lot of the action takes place indoors; as a result, the photography tends to be dark, and the atmosphere claustrophobic.  The choices of music and songs for the soundtrack are very good.

Overall, this is a film that has capacity to provoke thought as well as feelings.  What we think and feel is not always pleasant, but sometimes it is challenging to go there.  In this case, perhaps we are not too challenged.  If you liked Being John Malkovich, you may like this film.  6/10

John Macnab by John Buchan

Books with literary pretensions are fine things; however, there are times when I just want to say:

"Enough!  Enough of the analyses down to the tenth decimal place of individual psychologies and inter-personal relationships!  Enough of the portentous themes that resonate with the social and environmental crises that confront us!  Enough of rummaging around in the subtext looking nuances of nuances that may only exist in the reader's mind but we love to ascribe to the author's purpose!  Give me a book where the characters roll up their sleeves and just get on with it.  Give me a book that replaces agony with charm, introspection with action and conflict with bonhomie.  Give me John Macnab."

John Macnab opens with three middle-aged men being terribly introspective about their lives: they are bored with everything.  Almost immediately, as a cure to their ennui, the trio of friends decides to go to the Scottish Highlands and engage in some poaching.  Not just any old poaching.  No, they write letters to three lairds stating their intentions to poach on the lairds' estates between certain dates.  The wager: if they succeed in poaching either a stag or a salmon undetected, they will donate fifty pounds to the charity of the laird's choosing; if they are caught, then the donation will be 100 pound.  Each letter is signed "John Macnab".  Do they win their wagers?  And if so, how do they do it? given that each laird has stated they will do everything in their power to thwart John Macnab.

John Buchan knew how to tell an adventure story.  In this case, shadowy anarchist organisations are replaced by three would-be poachers, and the saviours of Western civilisation are replaced with some landholders asserting their rights to private property.  We are privy to the strategies and tactics employed by both sides in this amiable struggle.  We get to meet collaborators and informants; and in between the intrigues, Buchan's terse but evocative descriptions of landscape immerse the reader in the countryside of the Scottish Highlands.  Yes, if you can't go out for a walk in nature, then read a book by John Buchan.

Personally, I like books where the tech is limited to rifles, fishing rods and telegrams (or stuff of that degree) -  no Internet or mobile phones -  and John Macnab is that sort of book.  How wonderful to be out of touch, even if it is only to spend the weekend with such a book.

John Macnab was first published in 1925.  I read the Wordsworth Classics edition that I picked up for 50 cents at a church fete.  Lucky me.